BP tries to ‘make it right’ with $100 million in ads

BP spent nearly $100 million on advertising designed to buff up the company’s image and reassure people the company would “make it right” in the three months following the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

The advertising tally — technically $93,429,175 from April through the end of July — is more than three times the amount the oil company spent during the same period in 2009.

The number was revealed by BP in a report to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has been investigating the oil spill. Panel member Kathy Castor, D-Fla., asked for the information last month.

“BP’s increased spending was almost entirely targeted at national and local newspapers and magazines and national and local television advertising,” Waxman said. “A small portion of the increased spending was targeted at Internet advertising.”

BP’s TV advertising since the oil spill has been anchored by company officials — from deposed CEO Tony Hayward to Darryl Willis, the head of the claims process — assuring viewers that the London-based oil giant will make things right and stand by the Gulf Coast “for as long as it takes.”

BP’s advertising messages were carried nationally, with the company placing ads in local newspapers in 126 markets in 17 states between April and July — a big boost over the local ads run in two states and the District of Columbia in 2009. Although TV and newspaper advertising jumped in the weeks after the oil spill, BP actually aired fewer radio commercials between April and July, compared to a year earlier.

Barrack Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos — thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

Barack Obama is my college classmate ( Columbia University , class of ’83). Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University . They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they’re alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival … and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

– Universal health care. The health care bill had very little to do with health care. It had everything to do with unionizing millions of hospital and health care workers, as well as adding 15,000 to 20,000 new IRS agents (who will join government employee unions). Obama doesn’t care that giving free health care to 30 million Americans will add trillions to the national debt. What he does care about is that it cements the dependence of those 30 million voters to Democrats and big government. Who but a socialist revolutionary would pass this reckless spending bill in the middle of a depression?

– Cap and trade. Like health care legislation having nothing to do with health care, cap and trade has nothing to do with global warming. It has everything to do with redistribution of income, government control of the economy and a criminal payoff to Obama’s biggest contributors. Those powerful and wealthy unions and contributors (like GE, which owns NBC, MSNBC and CNBC) can then be counted on to support everything Obama wants. They will kickback hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to Obama and the Democratic Party to keep them in power. The bonus is that all the new taxes on Americans with bigger cars, bigger homes and businesses helps Obama “spread the wealth around.”

– Make Puerto Rico a state. Why? Who’s asking for a 51st state? Who’s asking for millions of new welfare recipients and government entitlement addicts in the middle of a depression? Certainly not American taxpayers. But this has been Obama’s plan all along. His goal is to add two new Democrat senators, five Democrat congressman and a million loyal Democratic voters who are dependent on big government.

– Legalize 12 million illegal immigrants. Just giving these 12 million potential new citizens free health care alone could overwhelm the system and bankrupt America . But it adds 12 million reliable new Democrat voters who can be counted on to support big government. Add another few trillion dollars in welfare, aid to dependent children, food stamps, free medical, education, tax credits for the poor, and eventually Social Security.

– Stimulus and bailouts. Where did all that money go? It went to Democrat contributors, organizations (ACORN), and unions — including billions of dollars to save or create jobs of government employees across the country. It went to save GM and Chrysler so that their employees could keep paying union dues. It went to AIG so that Goldman Sachs could be bailed out (after giving Obama almost $1 million in contributions). A staggering $125 billion went to teachers (thereby protecting their union dues). All those public employees will vote loyally Democrat to protect their bloated salaries and pensions that are bankrupting America . The country goes broke, future generations face a bleak future, but Obama, the Democrat Party, government, and the unions grow more powerful. The ends justify the means.

– Raise taxes on small business owners, high-income earners, and job creators. Put the entire burden on only the top 20 percent of taxpayers, redistribute the income, punish success, and reward those who did nothing to deserve it (except vote for Obama). Reagan wanted to dramatically cut taxes in order to starve the government. Obama wants to dramatically raise taxes to starve his political opposition.

With the acts outlined above, Obama and his regime have created a vast and rapidly expanding constituency of voters dependent on big government; a vast privileged class of public employees who work for big government; and a government dedicated to destroying capitalism and installing themselves as socialist rulers by overwhelming the system.

Add it up and you’ve got the perfect Marxist scheme — all devised by my Columbia University college classmate Barack Obama using the Cloward and Piven Plan.

I just realized something. What we have here is a government employee trying to make a point about how wisely money is being spent. There couldn’t possibly be anyone less qualified to make such statements than a politician.

A Canadian cruise ship struck and became grounded on an uncharted rock in the Arctic Ocean this past weekend. The Clipper Adventurer, operated by Ontario-based Adventure Canada, hit a rock in waters east of Kugluktuk, Nunavut, near the border with the Northwest Territories. A Canadian Coast Guard ice breaker, the Amundsen, was about 500 miles away. Fortunately, the weather was good and the seas were calm, allowing time for the Amundsen to stop its work and set sail for the stranded ship. About 200 passengers and crew were rescued unharmed, taken aboard and ferried to land four at a time by helicopter. The distressed ship was reported to be grounded on the rock, high tide could not lift it off, and it was listing.

The Amundsen was under hire by an oil company doing environmental baseline studies in the Arctic. That company was BP, thank heavens.

I am SICK of hearing how much BP is spending either on advertising on the actual cleanup. BP YOU (and your partners) made the mess, just clean it up, regardless of how much it costs it is YOUR responsibility, just STOP with letting us all know how much it is costing….you would not be in this position if you had not tried to cut cost on the drilling of this well to begin with!

New age journalism at its best. Just throw some crap out there to try to stir up more discontent. If you wanted to be fair and balanced, you might have included this part of Waxman’s letter. “BP also provided $89.5 million in grants to aid tourism promotion efforts in Florida,Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana following the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill. Some of these funds may have been used for advertising by each state or its tourism agency.”